The Dragon of Ruin

"It is His Majesty Cassius!" "Long live the Empire!" "Praise the Cinder Emperor! Praise the great red dragon!" Upon seeing the majestic silhouette in the distance, the imperial officers and soldiers all showed fanatical, pious expressions. Cheers rose like surging waves, echoing across the battlefield. A world that had sunk into gloom and despair seemed awakened by the abrupt entrance of the Cinder Emperor, reclaiming the light and hope that belonged to it. "At last..." Kazul slowly raised his head. A ripple of emotion finally stirred within his habitually cold, slitted pupils, revealing an excitement he could not conceal. He burst into wild laughter. "Cassius, you have finally come! These centuries of waiting can at last reach their end! "Her Majesty Tiamat shall descend upon the world to become the supreme ruler of the Material Plane, and I shall be crowned a god!" With the scorching sun at his back, Cassius slowly beat his wings and said coldly, "How truly pathetic, Kazul. A great wyrm red dragon willingly degrading himself into Tiamat's lackey to stand against me. Did the miserable fates of the green and blue dragons teach you no fear?" "You mean Erebus and Gorazdla?" Kazul cocked his head, a sinister grin spreading across his maw as he responded in a bizarre tone, "They were simply too useless. Speaking of which... I should thank you instead. You eliminated two rivals for me and delivered all their divinity right to my doorstep, saving me the trouble of devouring them myself." Cassius shook his head. "As expected of that old hag's chosen. When it comes to arrogant vanity... you truly are cut from the same cloth." "Pride is a true dragon's most vital quality," Kazul stated as if it were natural law. "As the future masters of this world, we have every right to trample all mortals beneath our feet." "'We'?" Cassius repeated the word before letting out a cold sneer. "I have no desire to associate with dogs of Tiamat like you—gambling your very lives and throwing away your own souls just to be hounds for that greedy deity, begging for scraps of her grace. "Heh... Kazul, do you really have any pride left to speak of? I suspect you can only flaunt your might before mortals now, when in truth you can't even control your own actions." "Dracarys told you all this, didn't she? Truly worthy of being my daughter—she never fails to cause trouble for me." Hearing Cassius's unvarnished, biting mockery, Kazul showed no anger at all. He merely raised his head and gazed at his foe calmly. "Cassius, abandon this pointless struggle. Offer up your flesh, and I will preserve your soul into the new era, allowing you to govern my divine realm. This will be your final chance..." Furious, Cassius laughed in exasperation. "Such laughable terms—are you provoking me?" Kazul shook his head. "You cannot defeat me. If you insist on resisting, I will obliterate your soul and erase you from this world entirely." "If that is how it is..." Cassius flared his wings and said coldly, "then let our strength do the talking." "As it should be." Boom—! In the next instant, both demigod-level red dragons fully unleashed their domains and auras. Gale winds howled and the earth quaked; violent air pressure obliterated everything around them, and the shockwaves of colliding divine powers shattered the surrounding mountains. In an instant, the sky split in two. On one side was an apocalyptic dead zone surging with divine power of destruction, choked with ash and dense smoke; on the other was a scorching domain of blazing fire bathed in sun-like brilliance. The fury of these two behemoths ignited the heavens. Every beat of their wings carried the howl of tempests, and every stroke triggered muffled sonic booms that rattled the boiling crimson lake below. The mountains groaned beneath the shadows they cast. Even before the true battle had begun, while they were merely probing each other, the space within a radius of over a dozen kilometers beneath them was utterly pulverized into ruins. Kazul studied the renowned Cinder Emperor. Sharp fangs showed behind the upward curl of his lips, and an undisguised thrill gleamed within his dark gold pupils. The red dragon before him—young, powerful, of noble bloodline—held vast and multifaceted powers within his body, yet they were blended with perfect harmony, operating like a self-sustaining demiplane. "What a flawless creation, like a work of art sculpted by the gods themselves. No wonder Her Majesty the Dragon Queen yearns so deeply for your vessel..." Kazul licked his lips with eager anticipation, eyeing his opponent like prey already within grasp, completely dismissing any possibility of defeat. At the same time, Cassius stared back at the great wyrm red dragon, scrutinizing him closely as battle intent surged in his gaze—he too had felt the provocative appraisal in his opponent's eyes. Lord of Lava - Kazul Challenge Rating: 40 The "Lord of Lava" Kazul before him was truly Tiamat's most favored chosen, revered as a true god by the Cult of the Dragon, and undeniably the most powerful dragon Cassius had ever encountered on the Material Plane, bar none. The great wyrm red dragon measured nearly a hundred meters in length, several sizes larger than Cassius. His physique lacked Cassius's sleek proportions, swollen with monstrous muscle to an exaggerated degree. Thick scales bore scars and gouges from ancient battlefields, bulging as if on the verge of tearing apart over his swollen musculature, delivering an overwhelming visual impact. Scalding, glowing red magma welled out from between the gaps in his scales, radiating horrific heat that distorted the surrounding air. Behind Kazul, broad wings snapped open like two red-iron mountains tearing free from the earth, bristling with grotesque bone spurs and ridges. The wing membranes were pitch-black as ink, churning out billows of ash with every beat so that the great wyrm was entirely enveloped in a shroud of ash and smoke. And from within that pitch-black cloud, two piercing beams of dark gold cut outward with boundless killing intent—Kazul's eyes. Unlike Cassius's vast and sacred pressure, Kazul exuded an aura of profound despair and malevolence. Any living thing around him that came even a fraction too close would spontaneously combust, reduced to dancing ash that merged into the black smoke of destruction, becoming part of this boundless apocalypse. Set against this terrifying "Doomsday Dragon," Cassius shone with dazzling brilliance, appearing like an incarnation of the sun god. Thump, thump, thump... Cassius could hear the heart from Tiamat beating continuously within Kazul's chest, pounding like an active engine. The sound was like a tolling bell counting down to doomsday. Every beat sent shivers through the Material Plane, making reality tremble and fracturing the surrounding space with fine, web-like fissures. And with each powerful heartbeat, the darkness borne of ash spread outward, carrying apocalypse to every corner of the world. Such was the terrifying power of the "Heart of Tiamat." Merely existing within Kazul's chest allowed it to warp reality and disintegrate matter, exerting a crushing pressure that made even Cassius's heart skip a beat. So this is the 'God of Ruin' spoken of by the Dragon Cultists... He truly lives up to his reputation, Cassius thought to himself. Yet formidable as his adversary was, it had come to this; Cassius harbored not the slightest thought of retreat, only an overflowing surge of battle lust. "Then let me witness just what kind of power Tiamat's finest hound possesses!" "Roar—!" The Cinder Emperor craned his neck and raised his head high, roaring to the heavens with magnificent fury. Blinding fiery light surged across his chest, radiating from the fissures in the dragon crystal as the surging solar divine power within him burst forth. In an instant, tens of thousands of light beams shot out from the blazing sun behind Cassius. The dazzling rays scattered the black clouds of ash and smoke, bombarding the great wyrm red dragon who symbolized ruin. Several beams struck distant mountain peaks, piercing through stone in an instant and melting entire mountains down to molten slag. Yet faced with such terrifying beams of light, Kazul merely spread his wings. Pitch-black ash hung suspended in the sky like a waterfall, cascading down into a barrier spanning thousands of meters that swallowed the beams whole. Solar divine power collided and intertwined with destructive divine power, sending a dreadful shockwave ripping along the black barrier. The mountains and hills beneath it shattered with a roar, churning scalding magma into raging rivers. Gazing at that black veil, Cassius snorted. The solar divine power within his body compressed to its absolute limit, transforming into minute, glittering motes of light that drifted toward the curtain. Boom! The next moment, the motes of light detonated violently like countless erupting supernovas, bursting into blinding radiance that tore the veil of destructive divine power to shreds as billows of smoke spread wildly. Cassius launched a lethal charge first. Flapping his wings violently, his massive frame tore through the air with a shrill whistle. Carrying a sky-sweeping heat wave, he struck toward the great wyrm red dragon like a bolt of crimson lightning. Kazul raised his head, bristling with vicious bone spurs. The arrogance and ferocity gathered across thousands of years in his slitted pupils ignited instantly. The orange-red sunset glow was devoured by a more tyrannical light—the fury of two primeval behemoths igniting the firmament. Thick screens of sulfurous smoke were torn apart by wings as they burst through the churning toxic clouds, their colossal bodies blotting out what remained of the sunlight. Riiip! A bloodcurdling sound of tearing flesh rang through the sky, drowning out the churning lava. Cassius's colossal claws, potent enough to cleave mountains and shatter stone and imbued with the cutting edge of a vorpal blade, slammed ruthlessly into the thinnest scales where Kazul's neck met his shoulder. In the next breath, scales burst and flew like red-hot iron shards, and scalding dragon blood geysered out. Kazul unleashed an earth-shaking roar of agony, thick with offended fury and genuine pain, prompting countless fountains of magma to erupt across the ground below. The great wyrm red dragon beat his pitch-black, smoke-belching wings, churning up scorching turbulence and furious black gales as surging divine power of destruction blanketed his entire body. The agonizing pain aroused the savagery rooted deep within the great wyrm's bloodline. Kazul snapped his grotesque head around, his abyss-like maw lunging with suicidal resolve to tear into the Cinder Emperor's comparatively vulnerable wing joints. Fangs sank deep, drawing forth gouts of scalding dragon blood. Cassius let out a screech—not of fear, but of frenzy and battle-drunk exhilaration from being pushed to true fury. Rather than retreating, he slammed his entire head downward with savage force, clamping his gaping jaws directly onto the mangled wound on Kazul's newly shredded neck! Within that gaping maw, searing dragonflame welled up from the depths of his throat, burning with all-consuming heat as if seeking to incinerate the great wyrm to ash. Yet Kazul's heart hammered violently with a dull thud. A thick shaft of black light erupted from his chest, carrying a divine radiance that destroyed all things, shooting straight toward Cassius's breast. That was the Light of Doom! If that black light struck a vital point, his body would likely disintegrate entirely within a few breaths! "Roar!" Cassius released his grip in an instant, twisting his body at blinding speed to dodge. Even so, the black light grazed him, blasting completely through his left shoulder and a large swath of his wing membrane, while sinister black luminescence corroded the edges of the wound. The terrifying black ray swept across the heavens and skimmed over the earth, pursuing the rapidly evading Cassius. Along its path, it obliterated several hills and reduced the land below to ruins. The distance between them widened to several thousand meters, leaving the two wounded behemoths locked in a standoff across the expanse. Cassius breathed heavily, the wound on his shoulder regenerating at a pace visible to the naked eye. Kazul did the same. Within mere moments, the bodies of these two dragons—each possessing a divine heart and horrifying vitality—were restored as good as new. Through this single preliminary clash, both had sensed just how dangerous the other was. This was an opponent worthy of battle!